


Bests and Worsts

by SLWalker



Category: due South
Genre: Angst, First Time, Fluff, Gratuitous descriptions of Canadian landscapes, Insecurity, M/M, bed sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 10:36:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8887636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLWalker/pseuds/SLWalker
Summary: The decision to join up their sleeping bags was practical.  Had to be.  It was cold, and two bodies together made more heat than one alone.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JackyMedan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackyMedan/gifts).



> Thanks for the beta, Squidgie. <3 Happy holidays, Jacky.

The worst part about sharing a sleeping bag was pretending Fraser wasn't jerking off next to him when he thought Ray was asleep.

The best part, though, was feeling the flex of his shoulder against Ray's back and listening to the way his breath got choppy and quick when he got close; the way his breath stilled as he came so he wouldn't cry out instead, the carefully measured sigh right after. The best part was pretending that, maybe, Fraser was touching himself thinking about Ray, and not anything, or anyone, else that he was probably _actually_ thinking about.

The best part was pretending that maybe he stood a chance.

The worst part was how hard Ray got himself, diamond hard, and how bad he wanted to turn and beg Fraser, _"Touch me, just touch me. I don't care if you forget about it when the trip's over, just let me pretend that right now that I gotta chance."_

Shit. That was too many bests and worsts, but that was what Ray had.

That was Fraser. All bests and worsts and nothing between them.

 

 

The decision to join up their sleeping bags was practical. Had to be. It was cold, and two bodies together made more heat than one alone. So they talked about it, and Fraser did that thing, that thing where he made it seem like it was perfectly normal northern tradition to basically couple up a sleeping bag with your male buddy. And Ray let him do that thing, nodded, and pretended like it didn't make his heart pound, didn't make something jerk and tug in his guts.

Muskrats were actually pretty mean, and it felt like he had at least seven, maybe eight trying to escape his insides. Instead of giving ground to it, he said, "Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. Sounds great."

He thought for a moment that Fraser saw right through him anyway, Arctic blue eyes narrowing a little with his eyebrows pinched towards each other. But Ray was going to pretend like it was a perfectly reasonable northern tradition and not him sleeping pressed up against a man he wanted so bad that he was willing to take it for only a minute, if a minute was all he could get.

Instead, he went and tended dogs and didn't look at Fraser again until it was dark, where there was only the light of the fire and where maybe he could hide things in the shadows dancing around it.

That first night, he waited until he was sure Fraser was asleep before crawling into the newly double-sized sleeping bag, and he laid awake listening to the sound of Fraser's breathing next to him.

 

 

During the trip, Ray saw day break over a broad valley from the treeline, deep purples and then pink, orange, and gold, then blue. He had never seen colors like that before, not ever, and when the sun crested the trees and spilled light across the clean snow, he couldn't quit grinning.

He saw a blizzard so thick it whited out everything, left him and Fraser and the dogs to hunker down and make camp, while the world that had seemed so big before closed in around them, intimate. They slept closer together that night than usual.

He saw mountains sawing up, up, up into the sky, keeping them buried in the dark blue shadows; saw the way that the light shattered in high passes where man might never have walked before, cutting bands down to them to warm them until they passed into shadow again.

He learned how to hunt for animals, which was both harder and easier than hunting for criminals, and he learned how to cut bricks out of snow. He learned the names of more evergreens than he knew existed, and what you could eat in a pinch if you were desperate enough.

He felt the first time Fraser touched himself in the dark, nothing but starlight above, and the realization of what was going on hit him so hard he trembled once. And maybe thinking he was cold, Fraser paused and edged over closer, and he waited a little while, but then he went on, and Ray stared off memorizing every breath and motion of it.

After that, it didn't happen every night, but it happened often enough, and Fraser's shoulder was always to Ray's back, and Ray was always hanging on every flex of it.

 

 

It had been four weeks, three days, nine hours since they started this so-called adventure, and the days were stretching longer, the weather kinder. Kind enough to sleep outside of the tent sometimes, under an infinite sky.

Above was a ribbon and a curtain and a river, and Ray watched the aurora, green under red, drawing slow, beautiful patterns across a sky full of stars. Sometimes, directly overhead, it seemed like the light was going to rain right down onto them, and sometimes it got so bright that it made Ray's breath catch in something between fear and wonder.

He wondered when they stopped looking for that hand. It was all romantic the first week, but then the reality came crashing in: He was in the Northwest Territories with nothing but a dog sled, dogs, a rifle, some relatively limited supplies and Fraser between him and an icy death. The fact was, Ray figured Fraser would be all he needed, but it did kind of drive home how hopeless he was out here. That was why he learned how to take care of dogs and shoot small, furry animals and which kinds of pine bark he could eat.

But after four weeks, three days and nine hours, it finally came crashing home that he didn't stand a chance against this. Maybe against everything else. But not this.

What the heck would Fraser want with some skinny, punk cop when he had ribbons of light and countless stars and colors Ray had never seen before to sleep under, the calm and peaceful rhythm of his breathing just as much a part of the landscape as the mountains and trees?

"How do I even compete with this?" Ray asked himself, watching the aurora as it rippled and trailed like it was made just for them and just for this moment, and not something to do with solar flares and magnetic fields.

And then Fraser answered, confused, "Compete, Ray?"

Oh. _Shit._

"--nothin', Frase. It was just me being-- I don't know, dumb." He hadn't really meant for that to be heard; thought for sure Fraser had conked out on him an hour before that. Now, Ray's belly muskrats started doing that jumping, attacking thing again, all seven or maybe eight of them, and he was doing his best to kick that one's head off before it got its teeth in. "Hey, tell me about magnetic fields again."

He could see Fraser look over at him in his peripheral vision, illuminated green and a little pink from the sky, and Ray didn't have the guts to look over back, which might have been related to that muskrat problem. So he just hoped that Fraser took the bait and rambled on about how the aurora actually sang, and you could hear it with a radio.

"You're not _dumb_ , Ray." Fraser wasn't taking the bait, and Ray felt his muskrats start losing their cool at the sound of that voice inches from his ear.

This wasn't going anything like he wanted it to, but when he opened his mouth, the words poured out like a waterfall, "I don't know how to do these things, Fraser. This wilderness adventure thing. This thing you do, where you know every rock and tree and mountain and I'm just-- here. Okay? And whenever we give up looking for this hand, what's gonna happen then? I go back to Chicago, 'cause that's where I know how to survive. You stay here, 'cause this is where you belong, and I got nothin' that competes with this."

Silence fell again. Just long enough for Ray to think he deserved the muskrat problem, and maybe they'd kick his ass after they got done chewing up his insides.

And then Fraser was moving, turning, and his hand was on Ray's chin, and he pulled Ray's head over to look him in the eye, and Ray was so shocked that he couldn't say anything.

"There's no competition," Fraser said, firmly, the only tell to any nervousness in the way he wet his lips right before he said it. "I-- perhaps I have been remiss in communicating, but--"

"Fraser, your hand is on my face," Ray said, kind of dumbly given Fraser had to notice that, but it was the only thing that came to mind in his surprise.

"--yes, Ray."

There was a long moment there where they both apparently didn't know what the hell to say, but Ray could feel Fraser all up against his side, heavy, solid, and the strong fingers holding his face by the chin. It seemed like everything in the universe fell still for those few moments until Fraser was kissing him.

Fraser. _Kissing him._

Some unseen tension snapped like a bowstring, and then Ray was kissing back, the hand not pinned to his side flying up to clutch at Fraser's flannels, the back of his neck, and then his hair. And Fraser's lips were rough and kind of chapped, but the inside of his mouth was hot and sweet and even as Ray was clutching at Fraser, Fraser was shifting closer, one leg finding the space between Ray's.

"I didn't--" Ray started.

"I should have--" Fraser began.

But neither of them finished, instead kissing quick and frantic. Ray shifted just enough to feel how hard Fraser was in his jeans, and he knew how hard he was himself.

Ray didn't manage another word after that; sometimes he was staring at the aurora, gasping, and sometimes at Fraser, who was lit by it. Fraser's hands were everywhere, and when he wasn't kissing Ray, he was biting on him; his jaw, his neck, his ear. Fraser's whole body moved like he was staking a claim on Ray from head to toe, leaving no inch behind.

The fact was that they barely got their jeans down around their thighs, and didn't even get their shirts completely off. Fraser's fingers laddered up Ray's ribs and where they rubbed together was delicious friction. And when he kept saying Ray's name, between bites and kisses, he said it like it was the most important word he ever spoke, and it was only then that Ray thought maybe he had a chance after all.

 

 

The best part of sharing a sleeping bag with Fraser was feeling his laugh transmitted all through his body, all of Ray's body, and the way even the glow of the northern lights couldn't hide the way he blushed.

"You mean all those times you were jerking off, you were--"

"--trying to entice you," Fraser said, his Mountie composure apparently destroyed, if the way he was breathlessly grinning was any kind of sign. The way he was smiling with all of his face, unguarded, tugged on Ray's heart in ways that he couldn't begin to quantify. "And all of the lessons in survival were so that you would perhaps be willing to stay."

They were both as naked as they safely could afford to be. Even a little chafed and pole-axed, Ray was still wrapping his mind around what just happened; all of their awkward the past four weeks of Ray thinking Fraser was going to ditch him for Canada. All of Fraser's thinking that Ray was going to run back to Chicago. All of Fraser's jerking off trying to entice Ray into making a move. And all of Ray thinking it couldn't possibly be for him.

"I love it here," Fraser said, smile fading some, but not in warmth. "But there was never a competition, Ray. Even if there were, though, you would have won it before we even left Chicago."

"Might need to tell me that a few more times, buddy," Ray answered after a moment, voice gently coarse to hide the fact that it was also kind of thick. "Uh-- after the, you know, survival lessons. And me figuring out how to move up here."

"I love you," Fraser said instead, leaning in to kiss him again like he could give all of the ones he'd been saving up for however long he had been keeping them.

The best thing about sharing a sleeping bag with Fraser was-- everything.

There were no worsts.


End file.
